Gnome My God

The town of Rotherhampton had gnomes all over the place. Gnomes on floors. Gnomes on the roofs. Gnomes painted as murals on walls. The town was mad for gnomes. The craze had started in 2022, when the Lord Mayor John Flumpton had decided that the town should gain some character and put it's image of a depressing industrial Northern powerhouse behind it. Everyone who placed a gnome on their house would be given a medal and certificate and (the clincher for these pennypinchers) a reduction on their council tax.

There was also the competition where the most tastefully gnomified house would be given a tanker of the town's local ale. As the sun never shined in this bleak valley, gnomes and ale were the only things that made the residents of this town happy. The winner would take two months off of work and host gnome parties where people would dress up as gnomes in silly hats, wear trowel-loads of make-up and elf clothes.

The town attracted coachloads of Chinese and Japanese tourists too. The town even opened a special airstrip to bring in the well-heeled of Shanghai and Ghunzhao. They would bring big cameras and flash flash flash obsessively. They loved how bizarre the town was and also how it was unpolluted and how they could actually see things.

However that was the least of Jack's worries as he looked over the park at night. He'd just been told gnomes came alive at night. The ceramic gnomes in front of him were in fact coming to life. Everyone thought they were just inanimate objects staring at you with that weird gleeful smile. But the truth was here they were at night toddling around digging holes and talking to each other in high pitched voices. And they all had their own personalities - they might argue and clash, some of them were friends. A few of the gnomes were dancing and then they would stomp off home to where they were before the night began. Jack couldn't quite believe it. Thankfully they wanted nothing to do with him.

The morning after he walked through the park and all the gnomes were static, as though what he saw had never existed. They were on their best behaviour. And then Jack bumped into Mrs Hexable. She was old and had a face like rotten fig. She hated everything and everyone. And most of all she hated the gnomes. She shouted about how the town was now full of slitty-eyed freaks and miniature freaks. She kept an air rifle behind her moth-eaten cardigans in the cupboard.

When she was in a particularly foul mood she would take it out, point it at the neighbours gnomes and then shoot them down into clattering ceramic shards.

The police had had words with her, but although the old lady had been given an ASBO, it wasn't rigorously enforced. Even if it was, there was no way of proving that it was her. Plenty of the local farmers round here owned guns. And after all, the town had more violent crimes to deal with.

Jack walked on to the park and then he saw a banana on the path. Or indeed a whole bunch. To give the town a more tropical feel the local council had decided to chop down the old oaks and put some banana trees in their place. There were huge bunches. And they were peculiar. They were growing wings. Jack had begun to notice this for a number of weeks. But now it was clear that these bananas were each individually sprouting angel's wings. Then a few of them started fluttering around.
Then he put two and two together. This must have been due to the chemical spillage from the Red Bull factory nearby. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. This would be altering the genetic code of various plants and animals in the local area and before anyone knew it, everything would be sprouting wings. The gnomes would be flying and be up to all kinds of levitating nonsense. Maybe they would get their revenge on that bitter old cow Mrs Hextable?

Was it the town, or was it him? Was it something in the water? Who knew?

But he liked this weird town and wouldn't change it for the world.